Y2K may not have incited a rapture quite like our parents’ generation may have believed it would, but it did manage to coincide with a bizarre Left-Behind type situation within the realm of rock music where shoegaze, slacker rock, and grunge (no, real grunge) got trapped in the 20th century while nu-metal, post-grunge, and other bastardizations of those movements set the scene for a bleak new millennium. It feels like an apt moment to be the subject of the new single from Chicago’s Babe Report, a band who staunchly adhere to their new label Exploding in Sound’s ongoing mission statement outlining a revisionist history where these movements never went away.
The lo-fi punks (featuring Ben Grigg of former EIS signee Geronimo!, as well as several bandmates from local faves FCKR JR) are announcing the signing today with the news that their debut album Did You Get Better will arrive on May 31, with the new track “Turtle of Reaper” serving as the release’s first single. Bridging the gap between the current movements in power-pop, pop-grunge, and other DIY rock subgenres and the decade from which they originate, the track’s lyrics also draw comparisons between the current state of fear-mongering among what relative few legitimate news outlets still exist and the anxieties that plagued New Years Eve 1999.
“This is an indictment of what often feels like fear-mongering in click-bait media,” the band shares. “I mention the Nadig News in particular, since they religiously publish crime reports. I honestly find reading those fascinating, but it feels like a way to keep people on edge and xenophobic. I’m sure that’s not Nadig’s intention (I actually have heard Brian Nadig is cool, and I respect that a family-run print newspaper can exist in 2024), but it comes off that way sometimes. Especially since it’s often printed alongside a column by mega-wang Russ Stewart. Anyway, the chorus is a call back to 12/31/99, when all the news told people to turn off their computers before Y2K, or else!”
Check out the tune below, and pre-order Did You Get Better here.
